The Dallas City Council has a chance to change that when it votes Sept. 18 to finalize the $1.35-billion general fund budget that pays for things like cops, potholes, code-enforcing, loose-dog wrangling ... you get it. A chance to make things better, safer — to do at least some of what was promised by the Dallas City Council when it glory-hallelujahed the 2011 Dallas Bike Plan.

But all indications are it will not.

Right now, the city of Dallas spends just $500,000 every year on bike lanes, which does not stretch very far. City Manager T.C. Broadnax's budget proposes to double that in the coming fiscal year to a just-barely-less-lousy $1 million, and then to double that in two years so that, finally, we might inch closer to the 840-mile-long finish line promised by the bike plan.

"We could do higher-quality projects — more protected bike lanes, to begin with," said Jared White, Dallas' senior transportation director tasked with keeping cyclists safe. "That's something we haven't been able to do because of funding. And we could retrofit what's already on the ground."

But, most likely, the council will opt to take a pass. Twice the council has straw-voted to kill Broadnax's bike-lane proposal — during a transportation committee meeting Monday and at a full council budget briefing Wednesday.

The council voted to erase three things from the budget: more outside offices for council members, staff support for off-site council member meetings, and those bike lanes. The total savings will be $830,000 out of a $1.35-billion general fund. That comes out to .06 percent.

A majority of the council would rather divert those few dollars toward paying and retaining fleeing police and firefighters and paramedics, giving them raises and enough money to keep them in Dallas when neighboring cities offer higher salaries. Except the proposed budget already puts more than 60 percent of that $1.35 billion toward starting salary bumps and across-the-board pay increases. And city officials are still scouring other sources for the many millions needed to make pay competitive.

Cutting that $500,000 for public safety "will not move the needle" when it comes to raising starting salaries to competitive levels, the city's chief financial officer, Elizabeth Reich, told me Wednesday.

This narrative, that we're one budget vote from living in a war zone, is so wearying — and so predictable before a council election. Everything to public safety, says the council while stripping libraries and parks and other "quality of life" items until they're left with spare change. And no one will argue with it. Because no one's against the cops.

But these bike lanes are not some needless expense — like those council offices. They're not superfluous. They, too, are about public safety. Even if a majority of the council doesn't see it.

A map that Dallas' transportation department is compiling to show where Dallas' bike accidents most often occur

At least six cyclists were killed in Dallas between 2013 and 2017, according to data the city's transportation department has been gathering; twomore in recent weeks. According to a heat map the city's working on, most bike crashes occur near the city's center, but they are spread all over town.

"We have to do what we can to make sure all our infrastructure is as safe as possible," said Michael Rogers, Dallas' transportation director. "And that includes bike lanes."

That June I took the boy for a bike ride downtown, the council unanimously approved the 2011 Dallas Bike Plan, which provided a road map for "a safe, efficient, connected bikeway system for all of Dallas." The plan, the result of more than a year's worth of packed-house town halls, promised "nothing less than a radical transformation of Dallas," said Andy Clarke, then executive director of the League of American Bicyclists.

Dallas, said our new transportation director and Miller and anyone who's ever been on a bike in this town, needs bike lanes that keep cars and cycles separate. "Something that gives a sense of safety not only to the cyclist, but the motorist as well," Rogers said. Except $500,000 a year hasn't gotten us there. And won't.

"It's not the quantity of bike lanes," Rogers said, "but the quality."